Triggered

“Keep it together.” She tells herself after three glasses of wine and spiraling out of control. Colliding with reality and theory, she wrestles with uncertainty. There’s no one there to help her when she’s drowning in insecurity for there’s no remedy to overthinking. Why can’t things be good, why can’t she be fine? Nothing is wrong, everything is going well yet she cannot divine why she feels the way she does. There’s nothing in her life but good fortune and love, yet in a moment demons creeps insidiously beneath her skin, whisper at her door, beg her to let them in like she did before. There is something so familiar in self loathing’s caress, something in her doubting, in her heart’s quiet unrest. She cannot escape, nothing she does is ever enough. Like the beach on a sunny day when the winds are icy cold, there’s a deceit to the warmth above– a warning of an undertow below. Pulled beneath so quickly, she can hardly stay abreast. Another glass of wine, another gasping breath. “Keep treading water!” From far away it’s all I can advise. I reach out as she goes under, gently framing her demise.

Never Mind

Forgive me, my love,

When I wander ‘way from home.

Know you’re always in my thoughts,

Though in this heart you feel alone.

Forgive me, my love,

Never mind that I can’t stay.

On my soul you have a claim;

To you, I’ll always find my way.

Twisted Trinity

I’m letting go of the ones I love

Lest they hurt from holding onto me

I climbed too far and was pulled down

From Eden’s apple tree

A taste of fruit, knowledge cursed,

How I agonize over all I cannot be

So I offered my soul, begged to feel less alone,

Now Death, Devil, and I make three

Drifter

From the darkness something calls to me

Calls me away from bed

Falling into myself, a despairing sea

Drowning in my imperfect treachery

I found Hell in my head

Now the Devil burdens my back

Whispers to me all my sins

His words of ice seep into my skin

Your arm’s around me

I’m drifting away

I feel you shiver in your sleep

You pull me closer anyway

I love you madly

But I’m insane

Can’t make sense of this heart or this brain

I know you love me

But I’m filled with self contempt

There’s no hope for me

My demon’s will never relent

It’s all consuming, the emptiness I feel

I crave the world on your tongue

Remind me I am still young

Convince me that it’s real

I love you badly

But I confess

I never meant to give you any less

I know you love me

But it turns to regret

I don’t have anything

To pay back this building debt

Hoping you’ll leave

Hoping you’ll stay

This sickness is controlling me

How viciously I sway

Pulling you closer

Pushing you away

Please believe I’m fighting

But I’m losing my way

I’m losing

run

have you ever showered because you hate crying and have no where else to fall apart quietly without anyone knowing have you turned the shower on as hot as it will go to try and burn your demons away have you sat under the scorching water pulling your knees to your chest as tightly as you can hoping if you make yourself small enough you will vanish  have you found yourself whispering viciously “I just want to disappear” in a plea almost like a prayer to any deity that might take pity on you and grant your wish have you envisioned the water swallowing you whole or running an angry red or full of powder as a few stray pills disintegrate and fade as you wish to have you wanted to leave everything and everyone in any way possible but you can’t escape fast enough have you felt so stuck within yourself that you turn on yourself and find the only place to hide is further within so you run and run deeper and deeper until you are a small speck of consciousness within the vast darkness and suddenly the water is no longer hot and the tears no longer fall and you sit in utter silence with your eyes closed and head on your knees numb to everything but the water falling on you like rain

Greatest Enemy, Dearest Friend

Staring into the mirror I see my greatest enemy, my dearest friend, hating every inch of skin, carefully trying to make amends. I hold others like newborn swallows yet do not know how to speak gently to the child beneath my own ribs. I stifle its cries, point out every flaw, tear through flesh with my eyes; I guess that makes me abusive. But words don’t leave bruises and though self loathing hurts, the pain is easier to bear when I know I deserve it. To push myself over the brink so that I might drown and sink to my lowest is somewhat of a comfort. Knowing things can’t get worse and that I couldn’t feel any more hurt than this is the only way to escape. Running is so tiring, my sorrow so alluring; to lie and die with Misery once again is the easiest way to stop feeling.

I think I was made to disappear. I cannot stay in one place too long before I begin to lose all I dare hold dear and fade from the world. It is not that I wish to let go, to die, I simply despise being alive. If I could only cease to exist…how soothing it would be to quietly slip into the night. Living in a dark void sounds rather pleasant; to float in nothingness, rather divine. My bones feel hollow– they echo and ache. This body is made up of odds and ends and expectations, with nothing being truly my own. There is no piece of me I love and yet every inch, I loathe. This heart has never felt the peace of a home. I fear I will never belong to anyone for too long; holding onto a ghost is no easy task, I hear. I try my best to put my demons to sleep so that I might not fear loving deeply, but they escape my grasp and remind me how lovely it is to be lonely. I am fading again.

I had learned how to live with my sorrows– I can feed my demons just long enough to sate their appetite, long enough to hurt just right. Flirting with Misery has made it such an easy lover to run back to when I can no longer fight to keep breathing in life. Being dead inside was the only way I could survive drowning, but now I’m dry and I’ve forgotten how to be alive. My lungs are exhausted, heaving oxygen when they had grown used to water. My body feels heavy on this dry land after floating for years through the trenches of the sea. If only others could see what I see, just how disgusting this rotting embodiment of flaws can be; perhaps then they would realize they do not love me after all. I can hardly withstand being with me, myself, and I. I am the heaviest burden I bear. How could anyone else live with a pile of despair and call it beautiful? How could they sense such a sickness within and proclaim their love? I do not belong amongst the living. I do not belong by anyone’s side. I am an excess burden to bear, I beg you, hold me no longer for your own sake. I would rather tell you the mistake that I am before you waste your time. I’d rather you cast me aside now with pain in your eyes than later with a familiar look of regret and disappointment.

Friday Night Lover

You thought you could be different

That perhaps you would get better with time

Filled yourself with this false hopes of adequacy

Recited all your prayers, all your lines

You poor pathetic creature

You will never feel the warmth of light

Your soul belongs to darkness

It is time to give up your sad little fight

I know you best through years of pain

How could you ever think you could be enough?

You may keep trying to be something more

But deep down you know you can never truly be loved

You are a fucking disgrace with no worth

Go ahead, dig your nails into a fist

It won’t stop the truth of my words

It won’t stop the thoughts of red wrists

I am the only one who will take you now

They are better off without you, don’t you see?

I will keep you safe and care for you

If you promise to stop trying to leave

You wandered so far from your place, my pet

It is time to climb back into this bed of dark blue

You were not meant to be with another in this world

Come, lie with me once more and escape into darker hues

Love Sick

I don’t know how to name this feeling: I have this constant wave of tears in my throat, this heavy knot in my stomach, this feeling of impending doom. I never let anyone close to me, not really, and now that you have managed to fill that void I tried so hard to maintain I can’t contain the monster that tells me you’re too close, too close, too close. It has almost been a year. I have always been bad with dates but I remember this one. I know it means nothing to you, but for someone who has only found solace in the temporary your growing permanence is unsettling. My heart tells me that even if it is temporary that I need to accept this as a lesson, that even if it is a mistake I will come out of this for the better and grow as a person. But my mind tells me it is an unnecessary pain that I don’t need, pain I swore I would avoid at all costs. No one tells you how it feels to be love sick. I am constantly split between being at my best and being at my worst. I keep telling myself that it is just the honeymoon stage, an illusion of something real that will shatter when things get “complicated”. I tell myself that I am still young and years down the line your name will just be a memory I smile at; the words “first love” will come to mind and I will laugh at the thought that I ever believed I knew what love was at this age. I’ll have a moment of nostalgia as fleeting as our days will seem to me then and it will pass as our time together will have. Yet, another part of me screams that this is the most real thing in my life and that I need to hold onto it for as long as possible, that holding onto this is possible. My present and future are at war. I can see us so clearly now, but when I think about anything in the days to come I fall into despair. I can only see what I have always seen in my future– a life spent better off alone. Perhaps it is because I can’t shake the feeling that I do not belong with you, that there is no room for me by your side. Then again, I have only ever belonged to myself, to this ticklish brush of darkness within. Maybe that is why I can’t see a future with you, I simply don’t know how to belong. I have yet to relinquish this hold I have on myself, how could I ever be with someone else? Maybe that is this feeling. I am cheating on Misery with far better company, you, and Misery is wreaking havoc within in protest. I am looking for a cure, searching for a way to rid myself of this heavy hold, for a way I can let myself belong to you. I am trying to get better for me, for you, for us, but I am sick.

Oh, I am sick.

Longing

I crave something more

Something tangible

A place of irrefutable existence

A dwelling that is permanent

A niche I cannot deny my belonging to

I think it sounds a lot like the word

home.

(I hope I can find it with you)

Nomadic Tendencies

My heart has nomadic tendencies. I find myself always wandering; always wondering if the idea of “home” will ever be more than just a dream. I see everything as temporary and I am never in one place for long before I feel as though I do no belong, before something tells me to move on. I only ever feel at peace thousands of feet above cities, dancing across the clouds, miles and miles being torn away beneath. Another stop, another try, but like a bird with clipped wings I only yearn for the sky and the promise of elsewhere. I can feel the feathers emerging once again; deep within I know every place I go I am destined to leave. I simply cannot resist the horizon calling to me.